Iran: Third Day of Protests and Uprisings in Sanandaj, Mahabad, and Karaj

Sanandaj residents staged a widespread protest for the second successive night on Sunday, September 18, chanting, “Death to the dictator”, “Death to Khamenei”, “Our disgusting leader is our disgrace!”, and “Women, life, freedom”.

The IRGC and other suppressive agents fired pellets and tear gas at protesters on Ferdowsi Street and other areas, wounding at least three people. While chanting “Death to Khamenei” and “Shame on you! Shame on you!”, protesters confronted the repressive forces. Brave youth of Sanandaj set fire to a motorcycle of the Special anti-riot Unit and tore down a large  Khamenei poster at the Gendarmerie intersection.

The same evening, Mahabad residents protested the murder of Mahsa Amini, and chanted, “Women are oppressed from Kurdistan to Tehran.” A large group of enraged citizens demonstrated in Karaj, chanting, “Have no fear, we are all together.”

The regime’s attempts to evade responsibility for the death of Mahsa Amini have failed. Fars news agency, affiliated with the IRGC, wrote that Ebrahim Raisi “reassured the Amini family today that he would ask authorities to clarify various aspects of the case.” This news agency admitted the regime’s failure in whitewashing the crime and wrote: “Fars reporter’s conversation with some protesters shows that many of them believe that Mahsa Amini died under torture. Most of them either have not heard the police’s explanation or were not convinced by it”.

A cleric Nasser Rafiei said on state TV on Sunday: “Something happens in the country, but they (the people) don’t wait for an investigation to be done and an explanation to be given… Don’t listen to analysis from a Monafeq (i.e., MEK) channel”.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

September 19, 2022